With Matt Birk retiring, the Ravens have a hole to fill at center in 2013.

The assumption has been that 2012 fourth-round pick Gino Gradkowski will be the man snapping the ball to Joe Flacco. That may prove to be the case, but he got a little competition for the job on Thursday.

The Colts and Ravens have announced a trade sending center A.Q. Shipley to Baltimore in exchange for a 2014 conditional draft pick. The conditions for that pick have not been revealed.

Shipley was a seventh-round pick of the Steelers in 2009 and spent time on practice squads in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia before landing on the Colts active roster last year. He started five games and graded out fairly well over the course of the 476 snaps he played on offense. The Colts have Samson Satele in their starting lineup and they drafted Khaled Holmes out of USC in the fourth round last month, giving them the freedom to deal Shipley without hurting their depth too much.

The Ravens have already called Shipley a contender for the starting job, but, at worst, hell upgrade the depth on the line in Baltimore. The Ravens know how important that is after watching Bryant McKinnie step into the lineup and play well during the playoffs last season.

[QUOTE=RuthlessBurgher;562998] The Colts have Samson Satele in their starting lineup .....[/QUOTE]

I was a friend of Samson's dad in high School.
Was classmates since elem school and he always had my back when there was trouble in high school.
Dad was about 280 (big back then) and had NFL talent but flunked out of college. Too much ganja :)

Samsons uncle though was a really good college linebacker and played pro ball in Canada.
Samsons siblings and cousins played college ball too.

But Samsons dad was a beast of a player. Dad made sure his son did not make the same mistakes he did.

Samson is not an all star but he has about a decade in the league as a starter, pretty good.